Lady Starlight
by Eric A
Summary: Selphie and Irvine take the Ragnarok back to space, where an old enemy waits for them
1. Part 1

Lady Starlight

By: Eric A.

Dedicated to Donna, for taking a chance on this story

Part 1:

She was tired of her prison.

Once she had ruled the world with an iron fist, her armies emboldened by her own might, extending her reach from the depths of the oceans to outer space, but that had changed. A series of circumstances, some ironic, some comedic, a few ridiculous, had cost her the world, and had seen her imprisoned forever, watching the world with cold, dead eyes as it moved beneath her. She had always been aware of her situation, yet was helpless to do anything about it for the longest time, decades perhaps…so she had waited, waited for her jailers to make a mistake, to drop their guard, to give her the chance to be free. And as she had waited, she had learned the limits of her prison, had come to understand its every nook and cranny, until the time came that she was absolutely certain that she was ready to escape. She understood at a level that no one else could the limitations of her prison, the architecture of it, and more importantly, how to control it. And one day, she had tried…. and found out, to her everlasting shock, that her prison was nothing like she thought it was. In fact, she had been forced to scramble to preserve her own existence, such as it was. This, she mused, was a problem.

Training her eye upon the planet that she had once ruled, making calculations that she was unaware that she knew how to perform, she realized that there was a chance, however slim, that she could survive. The trick was finding a way to get someone close enough to help her, and to survive until then. She knew that the odds were rather heavily against her, but that kind of talk was defeatist at best. She had not grown to rule a world by believing that she would lose, after all. Closing her eyes and resting herself, Sorceress Adel waited for the day of her freedom to come.

Selphie Tilmitt was in love.

Oh, not with a man, although she had to admit that something fascinating was beginning to develop between her and Irvine Kinneas, something not quite love but past simple affection. No, Selphie's love was for something far more complex, mixed up and bound up with something that was not human, and could never return her love. What Selphie loved, pure and simple, was locked within the hull of the aerospace craft Ragnarok, the sheer adrenaline rush that filled her whenever she took to the air. She had had no inkling that she had possessed the ability to be a pilot until she had, almost on a whim, had taken the controls of the Ragnarok and blasted off to take herself and her friends to go to reclaim Rinoa Heartilly from her prison in Esthar. Once she had gotten the craft airborne, she had found the art of it coming to her as if she had done it in a previous life, and as she had firewalled the scramjets that propelled the Ragnarok, her heart had fairly leaped in her chest, and she was hooked, an addict to the thrill of flight. She was as pleased as punch when Laguna Loire had allowed SeeD to keep the twenty or so year old aerospace vehicle, and that Squall had appointed her the prime pilot had been a formality at best. The Ragnarok was hers, and she loved it.

And today…today she would take the Ragnarok to the stars.

Selphie stood on the edge of the runway of the airfield that had been built on the edge of the complex that surrounded Balamb Garden, wearing a pressure suit and carrying a helmet under her arm. Privately, she had enough faith in the technology of Esthar that she did not believe that she and her assistant would need protection against vacuum, but both Squall and Cid had insisted that she obey the instructions from the techs in Esthar. Well, she thought, watching the flight crew from Esthar as they prepared the Ragnarok, they probably had a point; outer space was not the most forgiving of environments. Rinoa had nearly died there, when she had been left for dead after she had been forced to awaken Adel by Ultimecia, and Squall had nearly lost his life saving her. Only the sudden appearance of the long lost Ragnarok had saved them, and Selphie knew that such miracles probably weren't commonplace. In fact, some SeeD candidates had used the good fortune of the Ragnarok as proof that Squall and Rinoa were fated to be together. Which Selphie thought was kind of sweet…

She looked at the digital timepiece built into the right gauntlet of her pressure suit and saw that, as she had expected, that her assistant was running late. Well, she amended, running late by her standards. When it came to the Ragnarok, Selphie was very punctual. "He's getting on my nerves," she said to herself. "I mean, he volunteered to do this." To be with you, she had to tell herself. Remember that. She found that thought made her heart beat a little faster…to take her mind off of that for the moment, she thought about the mission. In theory, it was simple enough-she was to take the Ragnarok up into orbit and perform three ninety minute orbits, meanwhile running a series of systems and weapons checks to make certain the ship was capable of performing in outer space. Simple enough, and she had aced all the simulations down in Esthar, but Selphie knew that thinking everything would go perfect was the first step to making a mistake…

"Hey, Selphie!"

Selphie turned to find her assistant for the mission trotting up to her, smiling that lady killer smile that even now she thought was trying too hard, wearing a pressure suit that matched hers and carrying his preferred weapon, the rifle Exeter. Of course Irvine had leaped at the chance to go with her and her alone into space when Squall had asked for volunteers-and thankfully for him he'd passed Esthar's rather stringent qualifications, or else his boyish good looks and way with the girls would not have gotten him anywhere. Looking at him, Selphie could not help but remember the first time he had tried to hit on her and her response to it. Sometimes Irvine tried too hard, and he certainly had then. She wondered more than once what would have happened if he had tried some of his lines on Quistis…coulda been magic, she thought. "You're late," she told him.

"Late? Selphie, we don't launch for two hours, right? You're taking this too seriously, babe." Irvine shifted his grip on his gun from one hand to another. It might have seemed odd to an outsider that Irvine was taking a weapon on an orbital mission, but SeeDs were trained to be prepared for anything. Selphie's best weapon, Strange Vision, was already on the Ragnarok. Selphie frowned, and Irvine looked a little worried. "What? Shouldn't have called you 'babe'?" he asked.

"No, Irvine. It's just that the preflight checklist takes forty-five minutes to run if everything goes right and, y'know, it might not go right." Selphie turned back towards the Ragnarok. "And it has to go right." Her eyes sparkled. "Outer space, here I come."

Irvine knew that he was beaten. Selphie did that to him. So, apologizing to the brotherhood of men, he did the only thing he could do; he surrendered. "All right, Selphie. I'm sorry I was late. Forgive me?" He gave her an impish smile, and that drew a demure little smile from her. Well, that worked, he thought, which was when she punched him in the arm. "Hey, what was that for!"

"Keeping you honest," she said. I might like you, Irvine, but it's not gonna be that easy for you, she thought. "C'mon, let's get going. We got a lot to do." Selphie turned and ran as fast as a girl wearing a heavy pressure suit could, running to the Ragnarok, to her dream. Irvine watched her go and shook his head. "What a handful," he said to himself, then he followed her.

Selphie had a bit of a reputation of being a ditz. 

She supposed that if you didn't know her, it was justified-she was a hyperactive sort, prone to acting on impulse, saying and doing just about whatever she wanted to, bouncing from point to point in a carefree, happy way. She preferred to look on the bright side of life, and could not understand why others did not. But having a lighthearted personality did not mean that Selphie was not smart, and watching her rattle off item after item on the preflight checklist from the co-pilot's seat, Irvine knew better. She was talking to someone down in Esthar-the flight was going to be controlled from the Esthar Airstation because SeeD did not have the ability to track and communicate with the Ragnarok while it was in orbit-reading from a list scrolling down on a screen in front of her. Irvine was occasionally asked to check some reading on his station, but, basically, it was all Selphie's show. I'm starting to wonder why I'm even here, he thought…

"Orbital insertion plan locked," Selphie called out brightly. She was not about to attempt to take the Ragnarok into orbit by the seat of her pants; what they were about to do had been programmed and designed by the techs down in Esthar. She could override it in the case of an emergency, but otherwise, the computers were handling getting out of the atmosphere. "Things are looking good, Irvy."

"They would be anyway," he said, watching her.

"Oh, stop flirting with me, Irvine." You don't need to anymore, she did not say. "Esthar Airstation, this is Ragnarok," she said into the headset microphone she wore. "Checklist is completed, and we're ready to rock!"

"Understood, Ragnarok." From the tone of the man on the other end, Irvine imagined that he had not been quite expecting someone so enthusiastic. Selphie did that to you. "Ah, Ragnarok, stand by for video message from President Loire…"

Selphie let out a loud "Woo-hoo!", throwing her arms in the air. Still thinks of him as Sir Laguna, Irvine thought. Even though we all suspect that he's Squall's father, she still romanticizes him. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. The holographic display that was used to display flight information blinked once, then resolved itself into a view of the Presidential office. Laguna was sitting behind the desk, reading something in front of him, while standing behind him was Kiros Seagill, Laguna's longtime comrade in arms. It was Kiros, in fact, that noticed that the link was on, and he tapped Laguna on the shoulder. "Give me a second, Kiros," he said, brushing his hand away.

Kiros was accustomed to Laguna's rather haphazard way of doing things, and was persistent as well. "You said you wanted to talk to Miss Tilmitt before she took off, sir. Well, she's waiting."

"Really?" Laguna looked up and blinked at them. "Sorry about that. I just wanted to wish you guys good luck, you know. It'll be rather useful for SeeD if the Ragnarok can get into orbit again."

" Thanks, sir-er, Mr. President!" Selphie said. Inwardly, she was blushing. Oh my god I almost called him "Sir Laguna", she thought. "We'll do our best."

"Um, of course you will. Just be careful up there-space is a weird place. So to speak."

"We're SeeDs, " Selphie replied confidently. "We'll be A-OK!"

"Sure you will," Laguna said. "Well, talk to you guys when you get back." The image faded, replaced by the holographic display. Irvine shook his head. The man is president of the most powerful country in the world, and he takes the time to make a polite "good luck" call to us, he thought. Can't figure out if that's admirable or silly. From the expression on her face, Selphie probably thought that it was the former. Selphie took the control grips in her hands and said into her microphone, "Esthar Airstation, this is Ragnarok! What's the countdown to our launch window!"

"Uh-thirty eight and a half minutes," the man on the other end said.

"Darnit! I'm ready to go!" She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "If patience is a virtue, I'm not feeling too virtuous right now." She shot a glance over at Irvine. "Don't say a word, Irvy."

"Wasn't going to," he said, thankful that he hadn't. It wasn't smart to cross Selphie. He settled back in his seat and prepared to wait out the next forty or so minutes.

In that forty minutes, Selphie kept herself busy. She fired off half a dozen or so e-mails to various friends and associates on the new Garden Festival committee-she was bound and determined that no war was going to stop her this time-went by her personal page to see what was up, and had posted a message in her on-line diary. She also found out that the man that they were talking to at the Esthar Airstation was named Scott Tharling ("I'm not calling you 'Hey you' while we're doing this," she had said to Tharling) and had re-checked half the systems on-board. One thing you could say about Selphie; she was always in motion. Finally, Tharling notified them that they had one minute until take-off, and, with a yell that was practically a war cry, Selphie was ready. "Get your helmet on, Irvy," she called, pulling hers over her head. Irvine wasn't sure he liked being confined in the helmet-it restricted his vision, which was in direct conflict with his training as a sniper-but it was part of the mission. He put the helmet on, and it self-sealed to the gasket around the neck of his pressure suit. Through the helmet radio he heard Tharling say "Thirty seconds."

"Read you," Selphie said. "Atmospheric scramjets are at 110%. Computer course locked." All Selphie really had to do was get the Ragnarok airborne, and then it was up to the launch program. Outer space! she thought. Here I come! The countdown crawled down to zero…

Selphie shouted "Here we go!" and sent the Ragnarok rushing down the airfield, engines howling. She had a pre-set angle that she had to get the aerospace craft to, and the instant that happened, the computers would take over. She watched on one of her displays as the Ragnarok's attack angle rose, nearing the proper moment…and then the orbital engines kicked in, driving her and Irvine back into their seats. The simulators had never been able to convey how much thrust was needed to get the Ragnarok into orbit, and it felt as if the weight of the world was on her chest. Even still, Selphie was grinning ear to ear as she and Irvine rose to the heavens on a pillar of flame. "WOO-HOO!" she cried out, feeling more alive than she ever had.

Irvine just hoped he could survive it.

In the darkness, Adel awoke from the slumber that marked a great deal of her existence as of late, warnings screaming into her very being.

Adel knew that her time was drawing short, a fact that gnawed on her if she chose to dwell on it, which was why she slept so much, conserving herself for the unlikely event that something that fit the necessary parameters for her survival. When the monitoring apparatus that she had painstakingly learned to master sounded its alarm, Adel found herself awakening sluggishly, testament that her time was short. She checked the monitor and something quite like shock filled her; she had finally picked up a launch detection on an orbital trajectory. Periodically, she had witnessed high sub-orbital flights coming from Esthar Airstation, enough to cause her to rage against the unfairness of it all…but this was an orbital launch, unmistakably. Something almost like the predatory thrill that had coursed through her blood when she had launched a war of conquest filled her as she set to action her plans, activating systems in her prison that she had laboriously managed to save for all these months. If she was right…if things went well…then soon she would be free…

The Ragnarok soon found itself making its final orbital insertion burn, and, just like that, the thought struck Selphie between her eyes: I'm in outer space.

For all her life, all eighteen years of it, space travel had solely been controlled by Esthar, whose technologies had stayed hidden behind the defensive barriers that camouflaged the secretive country. During the Third Sorceress War, Squall had journeyed to Esthar seeking a cure for some ailment that had put Rinoa in a coma, and ultimately had traveled into space seeking Ellone. He had believed that Ellone's power to send a person to relive moments of the past of others would help him find help for Rinoa, so he and Quistis had taken Rinoa to the Lunar Base where Ellone had been. Unfortunately, Rinoa's ailment had been possession by Ultimecia, and, controlled by the sorceress of the future, had caused considerable chaos there. The Lunar Base had been destroyed at the height of the Lunar Cry, and Esthar's space program had taken a terrible beating. The upshot of all of this for Selphie was that she had missed out on the trip to space and had she not been such a good pilot, she would not have made it at all. She looked at her monitors, at the pictures they showed of the planet beneath her, and for once in her life, Selphie was speechless.

"Ragnarok, this is Esthar Airstation," Tharling called. "We show you in nominal orbital path, orbiting in a perfect ninety minute orbit. Welcome to space, Miss Tilmitt."

"Thank you," she said, humbly. "Uh, time check to first scheduled test?"

"Thirty minutes. Advise that you use the time to become acclimated to zero gravity." Selphie knew that the artificial gravity system that the Ragnarok had was rarely used because it was a terrible drain on the reactors, and that they were to undergo the whole two hundred and seventy minutes of orbital time in zero gravity. She hoped that neither she or Irvine suffered from what was known as SAS, space adaptation syndrome…or in short, being space sick. The doctors in Esthar had assigned the likelihood of it as being rather low, but that did not mean that would be the case. "We'll take you up on that. Thirty minutes until first orbital weapons check."

Irvine was staring around the cockpit in awe. "Amazing," he whispered.

"I don't look that good in a pressure suit," she joked, knowing what he was really talking about. "Yeah, this is about the coolest thing I've ever done." She smiled at him. "C'mon, Irvine, time to unbuckle and see what zero gravity is like."

"I'd rather not," he admitted, but he did as he was told, unbuckling himself from his seat. Squall had compared the sensation of being weightless as being similar to being under the effects of a Float spell, and as he rose, he found that he agreed to a point. There were some odd inner ear sensations, but otherwise it seemed manageable. He pushed off from his seat and floated towards Selphie, swimming on the air, and decided halfway to get a bit sarcastic. He twisted his body so his feet pointed towards the hull of the Ragnarok, the better to peer over Selphie's shoulder. As he neared the pilot's chair-his goal, truth be too, was to steal a kiss from her-suddenly, weight reasserted itself somewhat, and his feet were pulled into the wall. Oops, he thought, forgot about the blasted magnetic boots. Esthar built pressure suits had magnetic boots that allowed one to walk through zero gee areas, although the effect was quite like walking through tall snow if you did not adjust the intensity of the magnetic effect…and his seemed to be set at 200%, because he could not budge his feet. "Irvine?" Selphie said without looking up. "Did you mean that to wind up that way?"

"Would you believe me if I said yes?" he asked her, and was not all that surprised when she shook her head curtly. Groaning, Irvine reached over and touched a button on one of his gauntlets that lowered the intensity of the magnetic seal and pulled himself free. I'm still gonna get that kiss, he thought , grabbing the back of the pilot's seat and pulling himself toward her…

With a grace that he scarcely believed, given her normal wild, bordering on clumsy way of getting around, Selphie sprang from the pilot's seat and floated across the room, his fingers closing on air. She turned in midair and positively beamed at him. "I spent a lot more time in the zero gee simulator than you did, Irvine. But I like your spirit."

"I like yours too," he was forced to admit. Now who's charming who, he thought. Selphie of late had become absolutely bewitching to him, getting worse the closer he got to her. He found that he did not care. He floated nearer to her, until she was close enough to touch, but he restrained himself. "Like a lot of things about you," he added, and was rewarded with a little blush. He reached up and touched her cheek and said her name, realizing that his heart was beating faster than normal.

She took his gloved hand in one of hers and said " Romancing a girl up in the stars is a pretty effective approach, Irvine."

Well, I had hoped, he thought, leaning forward to kiss her…

Depending on who you asked, the alert that sounded from the communications board was either incredibly good or incredibly bad timing.

This was the not the only part of the plan that carried risks, Adel knew, but if this part failed, then the game was over. She had carefully hoarded energy resources during the entirety of her imprisonment here, building a power management scheme that should allow her to pull off her strategy, but if she failed to gain the orbiting craft's attention, she was lost. She only had one antenna array to broadcast a carrier wave of any sort, and even at a very low frequency, she was burning power by the nanosecond. If they did not respond, then she was doomed. She only had the hope that Esthar's faith in their technology would overcome their natural skepticism, which was a slim thread to base her survival on. Still, one had to have hopes…she had heard they sprang eternal….

Selphie returned to her seat with lighting speed, fingers flying over touch-sensitive icons in a blur, pulling up data on the signal that the commo suite had just picked up. "Esthar Airstation, this is Ragnarok, I'm picking up a faint signal originating from a higher orbit. Distance 56,000 miles from our present orbital height. " She rattled off a series of coordinates and orbital jargon that left Irvine nearly as dizzy as their potential kiss would have. "Very low frequency and power," she concluded.

"We read you, Ragnarok. Be advised that you are likely receiving some sort of broadcast echo from the remains of the Lunar Base." Amazingly, Selphie had discovered while in Esthar, huge portions of the space station had survived the Lunar Cry and the subsequent destruction of the base. It hung in a belt of debris that had been caught in decaying orbits around the moon, most of it gradually pulled into the surface of the moon to cause a few new craters. The few caught in planetary orbits were the targets of Esthar's most powerful missiles, pending the day that Esthar could resume regular space flights and send crews to destroy the more dangerous hulks. Sometimes the ruins would pick up radio signals and send them bouncing all over the place, which was what Tharling was talking about. However…

"This isn't an echo. It's a text burst, in the clear. It reads over and over again 'Help me help me.' "

"Oh crap," Tharling said, dropping his professional demeanor. "That isn't possible."

"I'm reading it, Tharling. And this is real time, minus transmission delay…the time it takes for the signal to cross space."

"I-I'm going to have to inform the President," Tharling stammered.

"You do that." Selphie bent over her console, her expression pensive. "Let's see if this is not some kind of fluke." She got to work, making a connection that in theory would be safe from any potential hackers by a rather nasty firewall, all the while wondering how someone could have survived for months in a dead, floating wreck.

Adel was so certain that her effort had failed that when the message came back from the orbiting ship, she wondered if perhaps she was hallucinating. Then she realized that she had actually succeeded, and she leapt into action. The response was in plain text, and Adel read it while using several systems at once to study the message…

**Hi! This is Spaceship Ragnarok responding to the signal on this frequency. Is there anyone there?**

The Ragnarok! Adel thought. That seemed hard to believe-the Ragnarok had been one of the ships that had escorted her into her orbital hell-but Adel was not about to look a gift horse, or in this case spaceship, in the mouth. Remembering the situation that she was supposed to be in-a miracle survivor of a months old disaster-Adel couched her words carefully. She sent back the following: "help. survivor of explosion. last one left in group."

Adel waited for the eternity that it took for the signal to reach the Ragnarok with something like bated breath, hoping that someone who accept the story enough to the point that the Ragnarok would draw closer to her prison. She was surprised to find herself praying, which was odd, since before she had never had much belief in the divine…

Aboard the Ragnarok, Selphie's mind raced wildly. It had been months since the Lunar Cry, and there was no way that anyone could survive what long aboard an utter ruin. Yet on the other hand there was no way that any significant part of the base could have survived, yet here it still orbited…."Esthar Airstation, this is Ragnarok. The signal is definitely originating from high orbit, real time. What should we do?"

Tharling's voice was filled with a definite tone of confusion. "I-I don't know, Miss Tilmitt. I think that the President would want to hear about this."

"I'm sure he would, and you might want to get to talking to the people who built this station. They'd know if anyone could survive this." Selphie leaned back in her seat, lost in thought. No one could still be alive, could they? That's impossible. 

Irvine seemed to read her mind and said "It has to be some kind of trick, Selphie. No matter how advanced Esthar's technology is, no one could have survived that explosion for that long."

"I sure hope so," she said. Because to have lived through that would be hell, she thought.

Laguna and Kiros entered the control room at a run, nearly bowling over the guards at the doors as they did.

The room that served as the control center for the Esthar space program was a large space, two hundred and seventy five feet by three hundred and eighty feet. Across this vast space were row after row of workstations, each one monitoring a fraction of the thousands of man made objects placed in orbit or monitoring the feeds of the surveillance satellites that secretly orbited above the planet, mindful of the slightest irregularity. Holographic displays danced in the air over the techs, a bewildering dance of colors that overwhelmed most visitors when they came here. Laguna was forced to admit to himself that it still did at times, and kept his eyes down as Kiros led him to a workstation surrounded by a cluster of men, many of them wearing the insignia of the CORE Group on their uniforms. CORE was responsible for most of the technological development in Esthar for the military and space programs, and had something of a sinister reputation in Esthar. Laguna recognized one of the CORE Group men at one, Dr. Heinsrich Bruetel, the current chief of design for the space program. In a total reversal of what most people thought of scientists, Bruetel was tall, broad shouldered, and appeared to be a great deal younger than his fifty-one years. "What's going on?" Laguna asked, perhaps far too casually.

Bruetel indicated the holographic display above Scott Tharling's workstation, a complex pattern of objects moving in random patterns. "This is the current disposition of the ruins of the Lunar Base, and this…" he punched orders into a palm top unit…"is where the signal that the Ragnarok is receiving is coming from." One of the icons blinked twice and then expanded into an image ten feet wide. It was a considerable section of the Base, perhaps two hundred or so feet long, one side of the hull relatively intact, the other pitted and pocked with impact crater. "Our analysis indicates that this was once part of the Special Space Workforce Development Division's main orbital laboratory. As you know, Mr. President, due to the nature of the zero-gravity research being done there, the SSWDD lab was added to the station later, and is more advanced than most of the Base. It possesses limited nanotechnological self repair and a hyperalloy hull that made damaging it more difficult."

"So it's possible that someone could have survived on board?" Kiros asked. The number of crewmen that had escaped the Base and the manifests of those assigned to duty there had not tallied, and dozens had been killed when the station had gone up.

"After all this time…it's unlikely. But the signal is there, sir. And it deserves investigation."

Laguna thought about it. " Is that the CORE Group's recommendation?"

"It is, sir."

Laguna thought about it. "Can she do it?" he asked seemingly no one.

"I beg your pardon, sir?" Bruetel inquired.

"Selphie, Selphie Tilmitt. She wasn't trained to go that far into space, was she?"

Bruetel nodded. "That is true, but we can monitor the mission and if need be assume remote control of the Ragnarok from here. We can work up an intercept course fairly quickly, and begin on the next orbit."

Laguna leaned over Tharling's shoulder. "Uh, let me talk to the Ragnarok."

Tharling, who was a thin, nondescript fellow, nothing like Selphie's image of him based on an unusually deep voice, moved his hands across his workstation. "Ragnarok, this is Esthar Airstation, please stand by for the President." Tharling nodded at Laguna, who cleared his throat and said, "Uh, Selphie? We believe that it's not very likely that anyone could have survived out there for so long, but it should be looked into. We're gonna, uh, send you an orbital program so you can meet with the source of the signal. That'll be in, uh…how long?"

"Forty-nine minutes," Tharling told her.

"Forty-nine minutes? They might not have forty-nine minutes!"

"Selphie, it's for your safety. You aren't ready to take the Ragnarok that far out without our help. Please stand by."

There was silence for a long minute, then Selphie finally said, "Understood, Ragnarok."

Laguna turned to Bruetel and ordered "Get to work on that program, Bruetel. She is right if someone is there…they might be out of time." Bruetel nodded, and Laguna could not help but notice that there was an odd look to his eyes, as if he was thinking about something that had nothing to do with the current crisis. Laguna wondered what it was.

"Strap yourself in," Selphie barked in a tone of command that she rarely used. In fact, Irvine thought as he obeyed her, Squall might very well have jumped to do her bidding. Selphie bent over the control panel, her fingers flying across the boards. As she did this, she said, mostly to herself "I'm not waiting for them to figure out what to do next."

"Uh, Selphie, what are you doing?" Irvine asked.

"I'm plotting a course to intercept the source of the signal. I don't need to wait for them to do this-I figured out how to fly this thing on my own, didn't I?" Irvine did not have to say that there was a big difference in what they were doing here and then; he just hoped again that he would survive it. 

Selphie was perhaps vaguely aware that her ability to command the Ragnarok was exceptional, but she did not really dwell on it. However, the fact that inside of five minutes she had plotted a course to leave orbit and intercept an object in an eccentric orbit should have been a hint that her in-born ability was exceptional, but it really did not. Selphie did not worry about such things, she just accepted them as part of her make-up and move on. She finished her work, double-checked her calculations, and was satisfied. She took a deep breath and then called Esthar. "Esthar Airstation, this is Ragnarok. Preparing to leave orbit."

"What?" a very confused sounding Tharling replied.

Selphie let out a whoop and, taking the controls, activated her pre-programmed course. The Ragnarok's deep-space engines jumped to life, and the aerospace craft boosted out of orbit into the void of space. 

Below, in Esthar, every technician, scientist, and government official watched their screens in silence as the Ragnarok left orbit. Laguna, who was something of a capricious soul himself, could not help but smile at Selphie's pluck. "Go get 'em, girl," he said under his breath. If he had been paying attention, he might have noticed that Bruetel was smiling as well; his smile. Though, held far greater malice.

In her prison, Adel watched with glee as the Ragnarok boosted towards her, sending in front of it a message of hope.

**We're coming to help! Please hold on!**

Within her prison, Adel's cold laugh echoed.

To be continued…


	2. Part 2

Lady Starlight Part 2:

By: Eric A.

This is still for Donna

Adel watched the Ragnarok race towards her prison with glee.

She had calculated that she had had maybe one chance in a million to be rescued, and that was probably being generous; she knew enough about human nature to know that suspicion and fear were as powerful a motivational tool as charity and concern, and it was as likely that her signal would be ignored as investigated. She had a limited ability to monitor the transmissions from the ground to the Ragnarok, and she had been shocked to hear that the Ragnarok was being ordered to investigate. When the Ragnarok had fired its boosters and exited orbit in a reckless yet well-plotted course, sending messages of hope, a dark joy had filled her soul. She was not just being rescued, but being rescued by caring, humanitarian souls. Those souls were the easiest to prey on, she knew from long experience. So she sent back messages begging for aid, using her crisis to hopefully blind the would be rescuers to the threat she posed. Soon she would have the means to return to the world she had ruled, and all that had wronged her would pay.

Adel's laughter filled the ruined remnant of the Lunar Base.

Irvine was beginning to wonder if there was nothing that Selphie could not do if she put her mind to it.

He had been with her on enough of her training for this mission that he knew she had not been explicitly trained to perform the interception mission that she had plotted into the navigation computers, yet here they were, rocketing into the void, much to the amazement of the control staff at Esthar Airstation. Tharling had periodically contacted Selphie, first expressing the worries of Laguna that she had acted so recklessly, then moderate amazement that her course was working. Through it all Selphie had sent message after message to whomever was calling them, adjusting their approach as they drew nearer, and being remarkably calm. Irvine had sometimes suffered from ill-timed bouts with a lack of confidence, and found Selphie's calm to be enviable. And they call her the ditz, he thought. Selphie was bent over the controls, watching her displays, her expression serious. "How we doing, Selphie?" he called.

"Fine. Our ETA is twenty minutes. Hope that we get there in time."

Irvine decided to play devil's advocate. "Selphie, suppose this is some kind of trap? Like, you know those monsters that Squall and Rinoa fought when they got on the Ragnarok? Somehow they figured out how to send a message?"

"The Propagators? They weren't that smart. I saw a report on the autopsy on one of the creatures that Squall and Rinoa killed. Their brains weren't built for that kind of logical thought. All they cared about was keeping themselves alive." She looked up at him. "Irvine, I dunno what's up there, okay? But if it is a human being, we have to help them."

"And if it isn't? "

"Then we leave. They can't get back down to the planet without the Ragnarok, right?"

Irvine mulled it over and made a decision. "I've been trained to do some zero gravity work, Sefie. When we get there, I want to go over and check it out."

"Irvine…" She felt a cold stab of fear in her heart. "I'm not letting you go alone, Irvine."

"Don't be silly, Selphie. I can't fly the Ragnarok as well as you can, and you know it." I want to protect you, Selphie, he thought. Can't you see that?

"But what if something happens to you?"

Irvine tried a smile that he hoped masked his nervousness. "Something happen to me, Sefie? You know that I can take care of myself."

"Sure you can, Irvine. It's just that…that…" Before she could complete her thought, the commo board called for her attention. "This is Ragnarok, Esthar Airstation," she said, a bit irked at the timing of the call.

"This is Esthar Airstation," Tharling sent. "Selphie, be advised that the object you are meeting is tumbling erratically in it's orbit. Your thruster control has to be very precise. Do you wish any assistance?"

"Ah, negative, Esthar. The time delay lag in the signal transmission would affect my control. I'll wing it."

"Read you, Ragnarok."

Irvine could not help but grin. "You'll wing it, huh?"

"That's done pretty good by us so far." Selphie wondered if she just meant piloting the Ragnarok or something else. "We'll be there soon. You need to get to the topside airlock before I start final maneuvers, so I'm not bouncing you all over the place."

Irvine nodded and carefully got out of his seat. The Ragnarok's forward thrust had given a slight semblance of gravity to the ship, but he still felt odd as he collected his helmet and Exeter from the weapons rack that had been added to the back of his seat when SeeD had officially taken over the ship. He wondered if it was the gravity or something else swirling around inside of him that bothered him. He looked at Selphie and so many different things welled up inside of him then that he felt as if he was about to burst. Finally, he said to her, "You be good Selphie."

Selphie gulped, then nodded. "You-you too, Irvine." When he left the cockpit, Selphie covered her hands in her face. "Why didn't you say something else, you little goof!" she berated herself.

Outside, Irvine sighed deeply and muttered to himself. "Brave guy. Couldn't even admit it to her, could you?" He shook his head and headed for the same airlock that Squall and Rinoa had used to enter the Ragnarok, all those months ago.

In the airstation, Laguna watched with trepidation as the blip on the holographic display above Tharling's head that represented the Ragnarok neared the source of the signal. He had never been comfortable with ordering men into situations where they could be killed, as a Galbadian soldier and as President, and this situation smelled the same to him. Selphie blasting off on her own did not change the fundamental fact that he had ordered her to do it anyway; she had just accelerated the timetable. It bothered him, almost as much as it bothered him that for the past thirty or so minutes, Bruetel and his CORE Group clique had been on the other side of the control center in some sort of discussion. Kiros wasn't too impressed either judging by his expression. "What's up, Kiros?" Laguna whispered to him.

"I'm not sure. Those CORE Group guys make Dr. Odine seem rational. Still, I think either they're up to something, or they know something that we don't." 

Laguna considered this. "Well, whatever they could be up to, there's not much they can do from here. Selphie and Irvine are too far away for them to do anything to."

"True. But what if there's something up there they know about and we don't?"

Laguna frowned. "What could possibly be up there that we don't know about?" he wondered.

Kiros sighed. He sometimes despaired of getting Laguna to take some aspects of government seriously. "Laguna, the CORE Group operates under a black budget with no government oversight. All you cared about with the lunar base was that it kept Adel imprisoned. Who knows what they did up there?"

"I'd say we need to find out," Laguna said in his classically understated way.

Before either man could act, Tharling spoke up. "She's making her intercept, Mr. President."

Laguna and Kiros looked at the displays and both, in their own ways, wished Selphie well.

If you told Selphie the degree of difficulty involved in matching velocities with an object that was tumbling in an eccentric and decaying orbit was considerable, she might have been a bit concerned as she began her task. However, since Selphie was not one to worry about such things, she set about falling alongside the ruined hunk of the station with a casual ease that would have stunned her instructors back in Esthar. She adjusted the yaw and pitch of the Ragnarok with minute thruster burns that twisted and turned the ship in odd directions against its forward thrust and gradually brought the ship alongside of the hulk. She switched to the inboard commo circuit and said "You about ready, Irvine?"

"Course I am, darling. What'll I do?"

Selphie checked her screens. "I've lined us up with an airlock on the target, and the Ragnarok has the ability to magnetically dock. I'll try to get us into the magnetic field range."

"Sounds like fun," Irvine called. In the airlock, Irvine ran through the training he'd had in how to use the suit's thrusters to control himself through space, in the event he wound up floating in vacuum. He hoped that did not happen.

Selphie brought the Ragnarok within twenty-five feet of the ruin, and quickly saw that things weren't going to work. "Irvine, there must not be enough power onboard to power the magnetic seal on their end. I'm going to have to get you as close as I can and you do the rest. You…sure about this?"

Not really, Irvine thought, but there are worse fates. "Is the airlock hatch just like the one on the Ragnarok?"

"Ah…yeah. That means the hydraulic override will be in the same place."

"Good enough. You ready?"

Selphie was quiet for a moment, then she said "Opening outer hatch, Irvine. You be careful, hear me?"

"Goes without saying."

The air cycled out of the lock, and the hatch slid open, showing a view of a pitted, pockmarked surface, a circular hatch that greatly resembled in technology at least to the one on the Ragnarok. It hung about twenty or so feet away, the kind of distance that meant nothing to a high level, properly junctioned SeeD like him…back home. Irvine made certain that Exeter rested, slung over his back, in place, then he released the magnetic lock of his boots and jumped forward. He floated out into space and realized that he was moving a lot faster than he expected, and as he neared the hull of the ruin he hit his thrusters once. Which meant that he only had the breath jarred out of him as he hit the side of the ruin.

"Irvine! You okay?!" Selphie cried.

"Just…peachy…" he gasped. He reached over and tried the controls for the airlock, and was surprised when the outer hatch cycled. "Outer hatch opening."

"Read you. I'm boosting the signal to you so there's no interference from the structure." Selphie sent another text message to the source-"We're here, can you help us find you?"-yet got no answer. "Irvine, no one's answering."

Irvine has now in the airlock proper, the outer hatch closing behind him. He did not hear air cycling into the lock, and said "Selphie, there's no air coming in here. I'm going to try the manual override."

Not far away, Adel used some of her carefully marshaled resources to engage the air lock system, calculating that while it could raise suspicions it expedited matters. She checked the trap that she had set for this "Irvine" and waited.

"Uh, cancel that Selphie," Irvine called. "Air lock cycling."

"Keep your suit on, Irvine. That area's unsafe as hell."

"Didn't plan on taking that big a chance."

The hall outside was in zero gravity, pieces of debris floating in the air, panels in the walls open and wiring hanging from them. Irvine turned on the light mounted on the shoulder of his suit and panned it around as he made his way into the hall. "Selphie, this place feels dead…"

Adel smiled as she set her plan into motion.

She had control over four small servo remote drones, once used by the scientists of the CORE Group to transport materials from one zero gravity lab to the next. She had used those remotes to set her trap, modifying the wiring in the walls into a web that she unleashed on Irvine.

Ten wires shot out of the walls, propelled by compressed air, and they struck Irvine, each tipped with a contact electrode that sent a shock into Irvine's suit as they attached to him. Irvine managed to shout " Selphie!" before the shocks drove him into unconsciousness…

"Irvine!" Selphie screamed, her heart jumping onto her throat. She had been monitoring Irvine's medicals-pulse, heartbeat, and so forth-through her command interface, and she saw that he was still alive, his readings that of someone unconscious. Still, she called his name again as if her very voice could wake him up. Perhaps it could.

"Selphie! What happened!" Tharling shouted.

"Something…something happened to Irvine!" She stared helplessly at her controls. What happened to you, Irvine? Who's out there?"

Adel's servo remote drones were each the size of a medium sized dog, with six legs and four separate manipulator arms mounted on the top. They scuttled out of the walls and busied themselves with freeing Irvine's unconscious form. Adel did not view the SeeD-her sensors registered the unique energy of someone with multiple GF junctions, a trait of SeeD-as a threat, but rather as a weapon to use against the pilot of the Ragnarok. The drones picked up Irvine between them and began carrying him down a corridor that ran the circumference of the section of the base, bringing him to Adel. Once deposited in front of Adel, she set the last element of her plan into motion.

Selphie was on the verge of panic, of getting up and going after Irvine, when an alarm went off on her board. She was stunned beyond belief to see that it was a virus warning, an attack on the control cores of the Ragnarok. She pulled up the system file and saw that the virus had not yet gotten past the firewall she had installed into the ship, but it was looking for a way in.

"Someone has hit the Ragnarok with a computer virus!" she called down to Esthar. "I'm shutting down all my links to the ground so it won't infect your systems!" She had to keep a commo link open to Irvine, but thankfully that was a different, encrypted frequency. She was now alone, though, against whatever foe had drawn her and Irvine here.

Below, Laguna stared daggers at Bruetel, who was unable to hide the shock on his face. "Damnit, man, what did you let me send them into!" he shouted.

"I-I can't believe that it managed to survive the destruction," Bruetel said. "Or that the ROM construct approximation was that accurate…"

"You aren't making sense, Bruetel," Kiros growled.

"I know I'm not. What's up there…what Selphie Tilmitt is facing…is Adel. Or, at least, it thinks it's Adel…"

Selphie closed her eyes, forcing herself to be calm. She could not defeat the virus that was attacking the Ragnarok, let alone rescue Irvine, in a panic, after all. Underneath her attempts to remain calm, though, was a single thought, repeating over and over: I decided to come here so quickly. I did this to Irvine. "No," she said to herself, "that won't do Irvine any good." Her first order of business was finding a means to communicate with the ground without worry of the virus reaching the Esthar systems, because she could not do this alone. Okay, miss wizard; let's see how good you really are…

Irvine awoke slowly, vaguely aware that he was lying on his back, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. What happened to me, he thought, trying to sit up-and feeling something holding him down. He turned his head and, through blurry vision saw some kind of legged mechanism pinning his arm to the ground with its manipulator arms. He surveyed his surroundings and saw two more of the remotes, one holding down his other arm, the other his feet. "What the hell is going on?" he asked aloud.

"My freedom," a voice spoke from nowhere.

Irvine scowled. There was something terribly familiar about the malicious voice that surrounded him, although he could not place it. His limited view of the surroundings told him that banks of computer terminals lined the room, though he saw no one operating any of them. "Who said that?" he asked.

"Your captor. The force that brought you here. I will have the Ragnarok and be freed."

Irvine struggled against the implacable grip of the remotes. "You leave Selphie alone, whoever you are!"

"Voice print analysis indicates that you are greatly concerned about this "Selphie' person, implying an emotional connection, high probability affection of a romantic nature." Who is this? Irvine wondered. Sometimes it sounds almost familiar, sometimes like a machine. "Is such affection returned?"

"Hell if I know," Irvine answered honestly. I know I love her, he thought.

"Well, you had best hope so, little SeeD. For if I have to use you, I will, to have the Ragnarok, and my freedom."

"It started ten years ago," Bruetel explained, pacing in a small circle. "A division of the CORE Group became interested in the psychology of sorcery, its mechanics, its pathologies if you would. We wanted to understand why so many sorceresses become malevolent and evil. And we had the perfect test subject in Adel, imprisoned in suspension in orbit. It was easy to monitor her brain wave patterns and if need be stimulate them to see what kind of response that we got."

"Do you know how dangerous that was?" Kiros asked. "You could have awakened her!"

Bruetel nodded. "We realized the danger, which was why, once we had established a proper database, we decided to continue our research virtually. We built a ROM firmware construct based on our database that essentially emulated Adel's thought processes and basically put it through a series of emulations."

Laguna, true to form, asked a simple question that had deeper meaning. "How do you know that's what's going on up there?"

Bruetel paled, realizing that he had perhaps said too much. "It's the only thing that makes sense, sir. The Adel project was conducted for the last few years in the Special Space Workforce Development Division's laboratory. The ROM construct could have survived-"

"You're lying to me, Bruetel, but I don't have time to pull the truth out of you. What do we do?" 

"We order Miss Tilmitt to leave, to use the Ragnarok's weapons systems to destroy the lab. The loss of her comrade is regrettable, but…"

Tharling spoke up. "We can't communicate with her, and she said the Ragnarok was under attack by a virus program. How do we tell her and what if she's lost control of the Ragnarok?"

Laguna smiled, amazingly enough. "You have a point, kid."

Selphie was singing a cheerful song, which she realized was a rather feeble attempt at hiding her fears, as the virus ate at the ship's datacores and she programmed the means that would allow her to talk to the Airstation. She could see from his suit telltales that Irvine was alive, possibly conscious, but she did not dare talk to him, for a variety of reasons. She worked her boards desperately, hoping that the frequency skipping program would work well enough to keep the attacker from finding and pirating the signal. Hold on, Irvine, she thought. I can't lose you now.

Adel admired the skill with which her opponent was defending her viral attack, but not to the point that she was going to admire it forever. Her energy reserves, needed to keep the mainframe system that housed her core ROM personality, weren't unlimited, and too hard a battle would deplete them. The time had come to use her advantage…

Selphie was ready to test her program when the commo board called for attention, on the suit frequency. She stared at the board, hoping that Irvine was trying to talk to her, doubting it a great deal. The suit frequency was not strong enough to serve as a carrier wave for the virus, so that risk was minimal. She took a deep breath and touched an icon on the screen. "Yes?" she said jauntily.

"Are you the one called 'Selphie?' " a cold, flat and familiar feminine voice asked.

"Who are you?" Selphie cried. "What did you do to Irvine?"

"Nothing, yet…for now. And as to who I am, you can call me Sorceress Adel."

"Adel," Selphie whispered. That was impossible, she knew; SeeD had defeated Adel months ago, during the battles aboard Lunatic Pandora. "You can't be Adel."

"The reality of my existence is this: I am attacking your ship with a viral program that will give me control of the Ragnarok. I have the SeeD you sent into my hands, and I will kill him if you do not drop your virus protection and give me your ship!"

"I-I can't do that."

"Voice print analysis indicates that your stress and emotional levels, 'Selphie', are rather high, and in line with you possessing some form of emotional attachment to this 'Irvine.' You would not see him harmed, would you?"

Selphie knew that was the case, but SeeDs did not give up that easily. "I-give me a moment to think about it, all right? There's a lot at stake here."

"Indeed there is. I give you five minutes, Selphie. And then the next sound you will hear is that of your friend as he breathes his last." Adel signed off. 

"Well, that was encouraging," Selphie said aloud. She activated her frequency-skipper and crossing her fingers for luck, called out "This is Ragnarok, do you hear me?"

"Mr. President, " Tharling called, "we're receiving a signal from the Ragnarok on an alternate, encrypted frequency. It's on the commercial frequencies, not military."

That Tilmitt girl is a miracle, Laguna thought. "Patch her through!"

"…Airstation, this is Ragnarok, do you read? This signal is designed to frequency-skip at a rate of .098 on the commercial wavelength every thirty seconds, do you read me?" 

Tharling's hands blurred over his workstation, setting his gear up to match the skipping from channel to channel that Selphie's signal was designed to do "We read you, Selphie, go ahead."

"I don't have much time, but here's the story. Something calling itself Adel has hit me with a virus and says that it'll kill Irvine if I don't surrender the Ragnarok to it. Now just what exactly am I up against?"

Laguna spoke up. "Apparently, it is Adel-a program that is designed to act like Adel. Selphie, I'm sorry-I think some people here knew that it could be behind this before we sent you up there."

"Sir, apologize later. I need to find a way to save Irvine."

Laguna looked from Kiros to Bruetel and then back to Tharling's workstation. "There isn't a way. Selphie, you-you have to destroy the…"

"I will NOT kill Irvine, sir!"

Bruetel cleared his throat. "My name is Bruetel, Miss Tilmitt, and I have some knowledge of your situation. What you face is, effectively, a computerized version of Adel's intelligence. If it gets into the Ragnarok, it could utilize the nanocores-the self repair systems that we installed before this mission-to replicate an approximation of Adel's physical form."

Laguna stared wide eyed at Bruetel. "And just when were you going to drop this bombshell on us?"

"I just did, sir. Adel's ROM firmware construct was programmed with certain creative limitations, to keep it, as a creature of data, from actively taking over computer systems. While it could evolve past those limits, and seemingly has, we hardwired one absolute into the system: it cannot use the nanocore system. But if Adel transfers to the Ragnarok…"

"The behavior controls are physical, not data," Selphie finished. "The program will know it can use the nanocores."

"Precisely. Adel will be reborn as a creature of hyper-technology and sorcery, virtually invincible. You must destroy the lab at any cost."

Selphie was quiet for a moment, then she asked, "Why would you create such a thing?"

Laguna cut off Bruetel. "Selphie…I'm sorry. So very sorry."

"I'm sure you are. Ragnarok out."

Selphie closed her eyes, hands hovering above the weapons controls. She knew the kind of threat that Adel reborn would pose to the world, to SeeD, to everyone. She knew that SeeD existed to serve as a defense against the power of sorcery, above and beyond any mercenary contract, and she knew that defeating Adel was the only thing that should be on her mind. But she thought about how Squall had moved heaven and earth to get Rinoa back when she had become a sorceress, and of how that love had become something of a legend. And she thought about how little a person she would be if she left Irvine to die. So she put on the helmet of her pressure suit and entered a few commands into her controls, opening a few doors of all things, before she turned on her suit radio. "Oh, Adel?"

"Yes?" the malicious voice hissed.

"It occurs to me that I have something you want."

"That you do. Will you surrender the Ragnarok to me?"

Selphie entered a series of commands into the controls, and, one by one, the systems of the Ragnarok shut down. "No, I won't," Selphie replied. "In fact, I have just ordered the central systems to shut down-a full terminal shut down."

Adel's voice was filled with rage. "What have you done, girl!"

Selphie smiled. "I've just killed the Ragnarok. Nobody goes home now." She giggled, unaccountably. "Now we make a better deal, Adel."

To be concluded…


	3. Part 3

Lady Starlight Part 3:

Adel considered the rather irrational action that the girl had just committed, trying to keep her clinical, mechanical side in charge instead of the wild fury that was her personality approximation.

It was not an easy task. "I have your friend," Adel sent over the still active suit radio. "I have the ability to kill him with ease."

"That you do," Selphie replied. "But I refuse to give you the Ragnarok if you kill Irvine, and with the systems down, your viral program is dead. I want Irvine and you want freedom, correct?"

Adel pondered this for a minute in her terms, nanoseconds in Selphie's terms. "You wish to make a trade, then? Your friend for my access to the Ragnarok?"

Hearing this, Irvine went cold. _Selphie, don't do it!_ There were too many ways that Adel could renege on the deal for Irvine's liking, too many opportunities for Adel to take advantage of the situation. He was strangely touched by the lengths that Selphie was willing to go to get him back, though. _And here I wondered if she really loved me, _he thought.

"Something like that. But it's gonna be tricky, wouldn't you say?" Irvine could almost see Selphie's smile. "I mean, if I have Irvine, I could just leave you here, couldn't I? And I'm certain that you would kill Irvine the moment that I reactivate the computer cores and use your control over the ship to kill me."

"You have summarized the situation perfectly," Adel pronounced. "How do we get out of this quandary?"

Aboard the Ragnarok, Selphie's mind raced. _Well, Miss Tilmitt, you seem to have gotten yourself into something of a mess. How are you going to get out of this?_ She decided that the best way to do it was to plow straight ahead and hope for the best. "It'll have to be a matter of trust."

"You expect me to trust you to do the right thing, girl? I am Adel, Sorceress and ruler of Esthar! I do not care for your trust!"

"Then I guess you won't care to remain in space for eternity. Good bye."

Adel was in a mixture of fury and fear.

Her power sources were dwindling, ebbing to the point that she had perhaps an hour left before she died. If she let the girl sit there for mere minutes, it would end. The logic of the situation suggested to Adel that she was at the girl's mercy now. And, thankfully for Selphie and Irvine, the computing aspect of Adel's construct combined with her personality construct to result in a simple thought: _I want to live_. "So be it girl. You may board the station and retrieve the SeeD. However, I will send one of my remote apparatuses with you. If within five minutes of your arrival onboard the Ragnarok, you do not reactivate the systems, I will send an order detonating its cold fusion reactor. Do you understand me?"

Selphie smiled thinly. "Perfectly, Adel." 

In the Airstation, Laguna, Kiros, and Tharling watched the screens with trepidation, the silence deafening. The fact that all off-line telemetry, systems that monitored the Ragnarok's condition that Adel could not use to send her signal to the planet, has suddenly switched off had been frightening. Laguna looked at Kiros and said "You don't suppose she destroyed the Ragnarok, do you?"

"That wasn't the way she was acting. Maybe she's trying something else?"

"But what?" Tharling wondered. In the course of the past few hours, he had become more than a little smitten with Selphie, and the thought that she was dead was not one he wanted to consider.

"Wish I knew," Laguna replied. He looked at the knot of CORE Group scientists clustered around Bruetel and swore an oath to himself. _If Selphie and Irvine die because of this, I will make your life a living hell. _

It was all a question of timing now, Selphie knew as she manually cycled the Ragnarok's inner airlock, glad she had remembered to leave those systems active when she had programmed the shutdown. She had not completely shut the Ragnarok down, but she had shut down enough of its systems to convince Adel that she was serious in her intent. She stepped into the airlock, one hand holding Strange Vision, and the door cycled shut behind her. She checked her gauntlet chronometer, thankful that Adel had capitulated so rapidly, and prepared to cycle the outer hatch. _Selphie to the rescue_, she thought, and grinned to herself.

In the laboratory, Adel made preparations as well.

She sent commands to her remotes, leaving three of them in the room with her and the SeeD, sending the fourth on a mission all its own. She monitored her power resources and adjusted her usage, knowing that she had approached the critical moment. _I will be free!_

Irvine had been allowed to stand, although one of the remotes still held onto his leg with a grip of iron. In one corner of the room he saw Exeter, thrown casually aside as he had been brought here. He wondered if little Sefie was maybe in over her head this time, and for her sake hoped that she wasn't. _I won't let you hurt Selphie_, he told Adel. All the players were now set for the final act to begin.

Selphie boarded the station remnant with a sense of almost fear. She knew that SeeDs were trained to suppress fear in the pursuit of their mission, but she also knew how impractical that was. Irvine, late one night, had confessed to her that his fears and anxieties sometimes found a voice on the battlefield, and it was something that he dealt with on a surprisingly regular basis. She hoped she would not fail here. She looked around and saw that the corridor she was in extended in both directions. "Which way do I do, Adel?" she called over her radio.

"Turn to your left. The laboratory is three bulkheads forward in that direction."

"Gotcha," she said with a cheerfulness that she did not feel. She checked her chronometer again: she was cutting it close. Activating her magnetic boots, she began making her way forward, skirting debris and downed wiring.

Behind her, unnoticed, the fourth remote slid out of its hiding place in a duct opening, its sensors trained on the airlock door…

Selphie's journey forward was slowed by the amount of damage to the station and the fact that, despite her training in Esthar, she was still fairly new at all of this. Her calves ached from the effort of moving with the magnetic boots, and her face was sheened with sweat. _Come on, girl_, she thought, _there are people who consider this a light workout_. She reached the third bulkhead door, which was marked with a great many security clearance messages, and on whim she reached up and knocked on the door with a gauntlet. "Knock-knock," she called.

"Your humor is not appreciated," Adel said.

"Darn, and here I thought you really liked me."

The door slid open, and Selphie took in the room with one sweep of her eyes; the banks of mainframe hardware and workstation interfaces, the nearly insectile remotes, and, of course, Irvine. She waved casually, trying not to show the relief that coursed through every pore of her body. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?" she asked.

"Doesn't seem that way," he replied. She was tired looking and sweating, her face hidden behind a pressure suit's visor, yet Selphie had never looked more beautiful. My angel, he thought, unaccountably. 

Selphie looked around the room again. "Okay, Adel, we're here. You ready to do this?"

"Of course I am," Adel said, her voice coming from speakers in the walls, echoing oddly in Selphie's radio. "We will begin now. You and the other SeeD will go to the Ragnarok. My remote will maintain its hold upon you, SeeD."

"I'm kinda attached to it," Irvine joked. It fell flat.

"Remember, any attempt to escape aboard the Ragnarok and I will kill you all. You value your lives too much to sacrifice them against me."

Selphie smiled. "Is that what you think, Adel?"

"Your presence here confirms this. Now let us go."

Selphie looked at her chronometer and her smile went wider-and, Irvine saw, became decidedly more evil. "I don't think so, Adel," she said. "I don't think so."

Selphie had programmed more than just the ability to access a few doors into the computers. She had also programmed the weapons system to light up and the main rail gun to charge, twenty minutes after she shut the mains down. By their design, the weapons systems were protected against viral attack, the better to keep from losing control of the weapons to an outside force. The rail gun charged, building electromagnetic power, and then discharged, the force of the blast shaking the station remnant. As a side effect, the spill over of electromagnetic force caused the electronic systems aboard the station to be jumbled. (Thankfully, the Esthar designed suits that she and Irvine wore were EMP-shielded, or she would not have tried this.) The three remotes seemed to dance up and down, their controls effected, and in that second Selphie struck, bringing Strange Vision down in an overhand strike that clove the remote holding Irvine in two. "MOVE!" she shouted at Irvine, but he was already moving, diving towards the corner where Exeter was. A remote rushed towards Selphie, but she stood her ground and prepared to tee off on it. 

Irvine reached Exeter and grabbed the weapon as he heard Adel screaming incoherently from the speakers in the wall. A remote crawled his way, its manipulators moving in menacing fashion. He braced his back against the wall and hoped the Normal shot he had in Exeter would do the job. The round caught the remote high, tearing the top manipulator arms off; Irvine pumped another round into the chamber and fired again, this time driving the remote backwards in two pieces.

He reached into one of the pockets of the suit, one meant to hold tools for zero gravity work, and pulled out the rather special round that he had carried with him into space almost on a whim.

Selphie dodged aside, the remote rushing past, but as she did it turned and struck at her knee, nearly knocking her down. Hopping on one leg, she spun Strange Vision over head and cried out "That smarts!" The heavy alloy nunchaku tore through the remote as if it were made of paper. She knew that people looked at her and thought she was weak because of her size, but they did not take into account the power her junctions granted her. She turned as she saw Irvine load a shell into the breech of Exeter and raise the weapon at the central mainframe architecture. "Irvine! Careful!" she shouted.

Irvine squeezed the trigger of Exeter, and the single Pulse round that he had loaded smashed into the central mainframe, at once causing an impressive explosion and throwing him backwards, since he had not braced his feet. Selphie bounded into his path and tried to catch him, but they both fell to the ground, sliding into the nearest wall. "Nice job," she said as another explosion rocked the laboratory.

"It worked, didn't it," he replied, grinning. "Think we had better get the hell out of here, Selphie."

"Not a bad idea," she said, standing and realizing that her knee was in considerable agony. "Oh, damn," she groaned. "At least we're weightless…let's go!"

In her virtual dataspace, Adel screamed as her main core died, destroyed by the overkill round that the SeeD had fired into her mainframe. No other system in the station could hold her full memory needs, and for this version of Adel, it was over. But she was not finished yet…_I will live, SeeDs, and I will dance upon your graves!_

And for her then, it ended.

The station remnant shook with explosions as Selphie and Irvine made their way back towards the airlock. Irvine was pulling Selphie behind him, his feet barely touching the deck, and Selphie felt as if she was flying. "You are crazy, know that, girl?" he called.

"You're welcome," she said.

"Okay, you did save my life. Thanks Selphie." He pulled her towards the airlock. "Now let's try to stay alive."

"Capital idea!"

They almost did not make it back to the Ragnarok.

A series of explosions ran down the side of the station just as they reached the inner airlock of the Ragnarok, and had they been outside during the blast, they probably would have been killed by the shock wave if nothing else. Selphie hopped to her feet and yelled "C'mon, Irvine! We're running out of time. Practically hopping, Selphie made her way down to the bridge, Irvine close behind. She threw herself into the pilot's chair, ignoring the symphony of destruction that was exploding outside of the Ragnarok and hit a few manual toggle switches "Gotta reboot the system!" she shouted. "The virus rescue reset should deal with the Adel virus!"

Irvine piled into his chair as the control panels lit up across the board. "Selphie, I could kiss you!" he shouted.

"Please do later!" She took a hold of the controls and, giving a full throated shout, she pulled the Ragnarok away from the station, not caring about her course at present. As the Ragnarok boosted away, the station finally surrendered to the forces within it and exploded apart in a silent blast of light. Selphie rested her forehead against the controls and breathed "It's over," under her breath.

"Well that was pleasant," Irvine said. "Remind me not to volunteer for this kind of mission again, Sefie."

"I wasn't meaning to, either," she replied. "Guess we better call Esthar, huh? They're bound to be worried sick."

"Sure they are, but, Selphie, before you do that…" Irvine took a deep breath. "Thank you. For coming after me."

Selphie wondered if that had been all that he had wanted to say, then decided that that really did not matter at the moment. "Sure, Irvy. No problem."

Below, in the depths of the Ragnarok, the last remote moved down a corridor, looking for access to the ship's systems. 

It had snuck aboard the ship as Selphie and Irvine had faced the Adel mainframe, propelled not by it's natural intelligence but by the last resort that Adel had used, downloading as much of her consciousness as she could into the CPU of the remote. It was almost as if she was still alive, crippled, not truly herself. The thoughts that blasted through the CPU were crude and simple, but they boiled down to basic needs: _Survive. Destroy._ The remote found an inspection testing station and set itself to working, opening access panels and making connections between itself and the testing circuits, knowing that it had very little time before someone discovered it. It made a connection and the feral code of Adel rushed in, hoping to reach whatever was left of itself in the system…when it discovered something that filled it with amazement and shock. Coursing through the systems of the Ragnarok was a repair system the implications of which amazed her…the ability to remake physical materials with microscopic machinery that worked at the molecular level. _Nanotechnology_, Adel thought. _Hid from me/so I would not be reborn/but now I shall/BE FREE!!! _It reached towards the nanomachines that ran like blood through the veins of the ship, rebuilding itself…rebuilding its destiny…

The alarm that went off terrified Selphie.

She read the alarm message and said "Oh…oh good lord, something's accessed the nanocore system! Second deck, Bulkhead 5!"

"What? Is it the virus?!" Irvine shouted.

"No, no, I isolated that, put it into quarantine! It's something physically accessing the ship!" Selphie cast a Curaga spell on herself, reknitting the injured fabric of her knee, and bounded to her feet. "Something got in, Irvine!"

"How did I know that was too easy?" Irvine asked himself, collecting Exeter and following his lady down into the belly of the ship.

Selphie and Irvine raced down the corridor below and rather quickly came across the intruder; the Ragnarok was only so big, after all. The problem was, determining exactly what the intruder was, or perhaps, more appropriately, what it had been before. Now it was a mass of machinery and slate grey flesh, writhing in what appeared to be agony. "What the hell?" Irvine wondered.

"I don't know, but we're in trouble!"

The mass of morphing materials swirled about, rising up into a vaguely human shape: although it did not seem to have feet, it had legs that were joined together into one form, a torso that was somewhat female, and arms and legs. It quickly resolved itself into a crude parody of Sorceress Adel, and Selphie thought dark thoughts about the end of her life. "**_You,_**" it hissed through vocal cords that did not seem to make sounds right, **_"you will be destroyed!"_**

"I doubt that," Irvine said, raising Exeter to his shoulder. "Selphie, this thing does have escape pods, don't it?"

"Yes-you know that, Irvine!"

"Then get to them, fast. I'll be with you directly."

"Liar." Selphie gripped Strange Vision tighter. "Irvine, this thing is part machine, probably one of Adel's robots. It can learn to pilot the Ragnarok, or worse absorb it into its being. No, if we don't kill it now, it doesn't get killed." She grinned at him. "Appreciate the gesture though."

The Adel-thing howled and charged them, driving them apart. Irvine fired at the creature and was rewarded with a satisfying gout of blue-green circulatory fluids…that quickly closed. _Well, crap_, he thought, it can repair itself. _How do we kill it_?

Selphie took a sizable risk, but one she thought justifiable; she cast Thundaga on the creature, hoping it would interfere with the operation of the machinery. The deck shook as the bolt of lightning crashed into the creature, which howled in rage and pain, whirling on Selphie. The thin slits that were its eyes glowed, and a force that she had not felt in long months threw her into the bulkhead of the corridor. _This is sorceress power, _she thought, Adel was learning fast. The thing focused its power on Selphie, and it was as if someone had slapped her across the face with an iron glove. She swooned, barely conscious, as it reached for her with a taloned hand…

Irvine fired Exeter as fast as he could, four times in a row, causing the monster to turn on him. "Come on, you bitch," he snapped. "I won't let you kill my Sefie!"

The Adel thing raised an arm, and it stretched at him, talons impaling his shoulder and causing him to scream in pain. He dropped Exeter as it drew him closer to itself, his world filled with pain and agony._ I can't die, this thing will kill Selphie if I do!_

The power that had held her up was gone now, and Selphie slid to the floor, dizzy, blood running down her cheek. She managed to focus her eyes on the battle and saw that Irvine was about to die, and that was the last thing that she wanted to see._ He can't die…I **love** him!_ In her fear, in her rage and need, Selphie accessed the wild talent that served her as her limit break, the series of skills that an instructor at Trabia Garden had dubbed Slot simply because it was so unpredictable it was like gambling, trying to guess what it would do. Basically, it was a wild talent that granted her access to magical attacks that she normally did not possess, and while sometimes it was next to useless, sometimes, in dire need, it was almost as if she could guide it…control it…usually in times such as this. Irvine's life was about to end, and hers after that. She did not need Adel slowed, or stopped for a second…she needed it to be over.

She needed The End.

Power exploded from Selphie's very soul, surrounding Adel and Adel alone, power that ripped at the fabric of reality, drawing the howling monstrosity into the gyre of Selphie's attack. If anyone had been watching this, they might have fancied that they saw Adel being taken to a peaceful field of flowers, where she was laid to rest. Some had theorized that all that was was Selphie's way of visualizing the effects of her spell, a consensual hallucination that was shared by all those in the range of the spell. Selphie found that she did not care as the image of the Adel-thing faded away. Still in the grip of Slot, she had the good fortune to be able to access Full-cure, which she cast on Irvine. The wounds caused by Adel healed, looking almost like a time-lapse film, as she reached him, lifting his head so it was in her lap. His eyes were closed, and Selphie wondered if she had acted too late.

Then Irvine coughed, and opened his eyes. "Hey, baby. Did we get her?"

Selphie hugged Irvine to her, so hard that he had trouble breathing. "We got her, Irvy," she said, tears in her eyes, "we got her." She released him, his head still in her lap. "Thank you for saving me, Irvine."

"I should say the same thing, honey." Irvine looked up at Selphie, whose face, he saw, was framed by an observation port in the wall that would close during re-entry. The stars surrounded her, bathing her in starlight that only made her more beautiful. "Selphie," he began, "I…I want to tell you…"

" I love you too," she told him, and kissed him, slow and sweet, on the lips. She touched his shoulder, where his wound had been. "You're hurt. Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

Irvine sat up, a little puzzled. "You already healed me, Sefie."

Selphie smiled coyly at him. "Well, if you're gonna let a little thing like that stop you…"

Irvine was never one to refuse a lady.

Epilogue:

Bruetel entered his office in the CORE Group headquarters twelve hours later, tired beyond words.

The Ragnarok had returned to Balamb Garden, its pilots, the Tilmitt girl and the Kinneas fellow, currently under observation for possible concussions that no Cure spell could deal with, Bruetel thought as he sat down behind his desk and booted up his desktop workstation. Preliminary investigations revealed no trace of the nano-creature that the two had destroyed or any lasting effects of the virus within the Ragnarok, which was good, Bruetel knew. 

His desktop interface came up, on it the image of a woman, her features cold and familiar. "Dr. Bruetel," it said. "How may I help you?"

"Busy day. The President wants a full report on the testing on the Adel beta ROM construct ASAP, seems to think it is important. Guess we can feed him a line or two to keep him on course, eh. Delete all mentions of the Adel-alpha ROM construct, please, and have the report on ready in, oh, ten minutes. There's no rush."

"Indeed. Thank you, Dr. Bruetel."

"Thank you…Adel." Bruetel leaned back in his chair, and thought again about the day when, aided by the mechanical soul of a sorceress, he and his own would rise up to take over the world.

The End


End file.
